Alright... I'm back in the loop a bit, so here's my impressions of the pre-production #0... THIS WILL CONTAIN MILD SPOILERS.

Inside cover:

Credits, thanks, a slightly wild blurb by Furman and a mini-gallery of mugshots, with non-revealed characters unnamed and as silhouettes only. (This should minimise the need for characters to self-introduce in a comedy Budiansky manner.) Of course, the silhouettes should be easy enough for most people to guess.

Story:

Don't want to give too much away, but the simple fact this is a preview needing to be non-crucial to the rest of the series should clue you in that it isn't an introduce-everyone-and-their-dog-fest. We do get a decent intro to Verity though, the first five pages of which everyone will have seen here. It continues with another couple of pages of banter between her and Hunter, fleshing him out as a bit of a conspiracy theorist.

The dialogue's of a type that holds a shade more meaning for older readers without making anything inappropriate for kids—hopefully it'll set a trend for credible human characters, which have been rare in past TF fiction. And when the bad guys come for the computer Verity has stolen, the threat isn't underplayed; there's intent to kill shown. The strip ends on a bit of a cliffhanger (I'll be interested to see how that seques into #1) and an echo of a Terminator quote.

So far so good, and there's a decent amount packed into a few pages...

Extras:

...plus there's a range of other bits and pieces to round out the comic, including a splash ad for #1 featuring a Ratchet robot mode re-design, intro blurb from Chris Ryall, a Furman interview, some E J Su technical diagrams of robot joints / brief interview snippets, and some further ads. The interviews and introductions give exposition of some of the design and writing decisions IDW have been making, generally managing to avoid reading like filler—much won't be new to those who've been keeping up with things online, but should answer questions the casual older buyer may have (i.e. we could avoid a bit of the "why duzznt this follow [insert previous continuity]?!!!11!!" deluge that happened with Dreamwave.)

I'm very glad to hear reiteration that this won't be laid out as a retelling of old material—if I wanted that, I'd just read reprints. Battlechargers being in the initial Decepticon lineup are a nice corroboration of this; introducing characters in particular groups and in particular order would suck, in my not-so-humble opinion. I'm fervently hoping that we never see a Transformers: the Movie analogue in IDW continuity, nor any sign of Unicron and other clichés that've had every last drop of life pounded from them.

Strip art:

Not many glimpses of Transformers yet, so it's a bit early to be passing judgement. I'm not keen on some of the colouring, which in places is very stark and lacking in subtlety, in sharp contrast to a much nicer two-page spread of the camper van being overshadowed by a jet—it looks as if a different colourist did that. Here's hoping the less-saturated approach will be taken with the main series, as I'd hate for the art as a whole to be criticised because of the colouring job.

Summary:

I've pre-ordered mine from oneshallstand.com, and will be doing the same for the series once there's opportunity to do so.

After seeing those new auction pictures of unused Dreamwave material from Guido on Seibertron...the art doesn't compare but I'm still trying to hold judgement till I read a few issues because I do love a good story.

But I watch the art on dreamwave and it only reminds me how much I missed Dreamwave.

I don't mind the restart but you know, years of established history from the cartoon to the marvel comics shouldn't bring us to this point of starting over.

At least with Dreamwave, there was already some history no matter how confusing it was at times.